Ladies and gentlemen, how are you? Waco here at Watches and Wonders 2026 with Chopard's newly minted chief of staff. Karl-Friedrich, how are you, sir? Félicitations. Talk to me a little bit about chief of staff. What does that mean exactly, and what do you hope to bring to this role?
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
0:15 ↗
Well, I mean, essentially, it means that I'll be doing much more together with my father and our team at L'École d'Horlogerie with Ken Kashiama, who you know very well, of course, as well. But essentially, it's working on a bunch of different things all related very closely to L.U.C., to Alpine Eagle, to manufacture. So really diving deep into the watches.
That's awesome. You know, I will for those of you who have Watchmen of the Hour, and for those of you haven't, please go ahead and do so. There's a great episode with the Scheufele family, and at the very end of it, I asked your parents, how does it make you feel to have one of your children, or actually two of your children now, so emotionally invested in the future of Chopard, and wanting to bring their energy, their imagination, their creativity. And they said it's the dream of every parent. I mean, it's also a meritocracy, so you have to, you know,
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
1:12 ↗
Earn it.
As well, which we've established in that episode. But I mean, that's great, man. So,
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
1:17 ↗
Thank you.
You know, big congratulations.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
1:19 ↗
Thank you. So very kind of you. I'm looking forward to working closely with the family, but also working together with our teams on new exciting projects. We have a bunch of stuff in the works, some of which we're releasing here at Watches and Wonders, but a lot more to come. So it should be exciting.
So let's maybe start with a prize for the best striking watch of last year.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
1:42 ↗
Okay, which was a watch that we launched at Dubai Watch Week together, actually, which is the grand strike, the world's very first Quantième Perpétuel Sonnerie that's using sapphire crystal gongs, which also has a tourbillon that is COSC-certified with stop seconds, which is just nuts. So anyway, here you go.
Wow. It's pretty cool. It's a challenge coin, so you can pop it out and put it in your pocket or wear it around your neck if you want. So now there'll be a discussion in which office does it go? Does it go into my father's office?
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
2:17 ↗
I feel the vibe is it's going to modernize his setup.
That's super cool. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
2:25 ↗
I really appreciate it.
So I know we have some interesting additions to the Alpine Eagle family, a model which is very close to your heart since you were kind of the guy behind that project. So shall we take a look?
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
2:43 ↗
Good.
Where should we start? Well, it was really cool because this watch has a really interesting symbol. It's got a little magnet with it crossed out. So maybe tell me what's going on here.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
2:54 ↗
So it's funny, we were showing this particular Alpine Eagle to some collectors this morning, and I didn't say anything. I just kind of let the watch turn around the room to see if they would notice anything about it. And a couple of people noticed the symbol of the crossed-out magnet and started asking questions. Basically, it's the introduction of amagnetic hairsprings in our movements.
Wow. And we're starting on this beautiful 41mm Alpine Eagle with the moss green dial, and it's a way of celebrating that introduction into the movements. We added just a discreet little symbol, kind of if you know, you know, if you can spot it.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
3:43 ↗
And yeah, I think it's an exciting way to introduce this next step in our movements. So the question is, what is the material of the hairspring to make it amagnetic? You have the silicon hairspring that is being used by a couple of brands.
Right. We went, I want to say, in more of a traditional direction.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
4:01 ↗
I love that.
We want to stay in metals because to us, mechanical watchmaking has metal in the movement.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
4:10 ↗
Oh.
And so we use the special alloy that we are now able to use, which we weren't able to use before because it was still patented, as you surely know. And we're happy to be able to introduce it now in all these watches.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
4:28 ↗
If I'm not mistaken, this hairspring is manufactured by a company called Atokalpa, which is one of the companies that has had real expertise in hairsprings. And I only recently realized that this is a company that you are
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
4:45 ↗
Yes, exactly. Along with quite a few other brands in the industry.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
4:51 ↗
And yeah, these are projects that you work on, and I think when you're so close to manufacturers and you try to have a vertical integration together with your manufacturers, like we see here with Metalem, it allows you to work on long-term projects, starting with one model and then introducing it to the rest of the collection. That's super important not only for us but for other brands and the industry in general.
You know, I really like that because I think that really is an expression of this philosophy your family always has, which is to think about the long term. Taking a shareholding in an expert in hairspring manufacturing is very technical, but
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
5:38 ↗
Very niche, but at the same time very necessary if you're trying to improve the performance of a watch. Because in the end, magnetism is the number one reason that watches go to the service center. It's all around us. The phone, in the airports, these are just two examples of strong magnetic fields.
Yeah, clearly set off the time on the watch, and we see it a lot in our service centers. So our director of SAV is really happy about that innovation.
Karl-friedrich Scheufele
6:11 ↗
Really? Because he'll get to work on different subjects. Very cool.
Okay, so let's talk about this execution of the Alpine Eagle next. It's kind of the ultimate collector's Alpine Eagle, the 41 XPS with this beautiful mountain glow dial, new taper on the bracelet, micro-adjustments. So it's really a complete package.
